Today, the film industry lost not only one of its brightest stars, but also one of its biggest champions: Robert Redford, who was instrumental to two revolutions that transformed Hollywood.

An iconic face in such films as “All the President’s Men” and “The Natural,” Redford was a key figure of the New Hollywood — the late-’60s creative upheaval that brought fresh life to the film industry, at a time when television was siphoning audiences away and the studios were flailing to identify what the younger generation wanted. The answer: They wanted relevant stories and leading men like Redford, who could take the mantle from earlier matinee idols, and do so with a certain knowing twinkle in his eye that showed he was in on the joke.

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Released in 1969, the free-spirited and forward-thinking Western “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” may have made Redford a star, but the Sundance Film Festival made him a saint, launching a near-total overhaul of the film business around writer-directors. Because success came early to “the kid” — a strawberry blond California-born sun god who battled the stereotype that he was just another pretty face — he took the opportunity to reinvent himself several times over the course of his........

© Variety